6 Americans and 4 Britons Are Killed in Attacks in Iraq

By KIRK SEMPLE; Ahmad Fadam and Ashley Gilbertson contributed reporting from Baghdad, and Iraqi employees of The New York Times from Basra, Kut and Mosul.

Published: April 6, 2007

Six American and four British soldiers were killed in separate attacks around Iraq, coalition officials said Thursday, while an American helicopter crashed south of Baghdad, wounding four soldiers.

Four of the Americans died Wednesday and four were wounded when their vehicles were hit by roadside bombs in southern Baghdad and north of the city, the American military command said.

Two soldiers were killed Tuesday and one was wounded in attacks by small-arms fire in eastern and southern Baghdad, the military said.

At least 18 American service members have been killed this month, according to Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, an independent Web site that monitors military and civilian casualties.

The British soldiers were killed, with a civilian interpreter, when they were ambushed Thursday during a patrol mission outside Basra in southern Iraq, the British military said.

A British spokesman, Lt. Col. Kevin Stratford-Wright, said the unit repelled an insurgent attack, hitting at least one of the gunmen before driving away, Agence France-Presse reported. Later, the unit was hit west of Basra by a roadside bomb, followed by small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades, Colonel Stratford-Wright told Agence France-Presse.

All five of the victims died in the roadside bombing, he said.

The attack was the deadliest for British forces in Iraq since last November, when four soldiers were killed when their patrol boat was blown up in the Shatt al Arab waterway near Basra.

In the four years since the American-led invasion in March 2003, at least 140 British soldiers have been killed in Iraq, Iraq Coalition Casualty Count said.

The American military did not divulge the cause of the helicopter crash, which occurred Thursday south of Baghdad. The helicopter was carrying nine people, all of whom were safely evacuated, military officials said.

Reuters quoted witnesses as saying that they heard heavy gunfire before the crash, suggesting that the helicopter had been shot down.

At least nine other helicopters, including two operated by private security companies, have crashed in Iraq since Jan. 20, several brought down by insurgents, the American military reported.

Other violence occurred around Iraq on Thursday. In Baghdad, a car bomber blew himself up outside a government security office in Jamaa, a western neighborhood, killing one civilian and wounding three, an Interior Ministry official said. The blast damaged the nearby headquarters of Baghdad Television, which is owned by the Iraqi Islamic Party, a Sunni Arab organization, the police said.

Mortar shells fell in Shurta, a neighborhood in western Baghdad, killing two people and wounding five, and another mortar shell exploded in Shaab, a northern neighborhood, also killing two and wounding five, the Interior Ministry official said. A bomb planted on a major road in the Adil neighborhood of western Baghdad killed two police officers and wounded six others, he added.

A bomb exploded on a road in Binouk, an eastern neighborhood, killing a civilian and wounding two, the ministry official said, and a guard at Mustansriya University was killed and four were wounded in a shootout with gunmen who tried to kidnap a student.

A sniper in Amil, a southwestern neighborhood, killed a man and a child, the ministry official said, and gunmen opened fire on civilians in the Saidiya district, killing one and wounding another. At least 11 bodies were found around the city, the official said.

Iraqi-American security stations in three Baghdad neighborhoods were attacked in what may have been a coordinated offensive, American military commanders said. A car bomb exploded outside a station in Khadra while mortar shells hit stations in Sadr City and Mansour, the commanders said.

In Mosul, officials at the city morgue said 10 Iraqi Army soldiers were killed in an attack against a military post in Zinzala, a village about 20 miles west of the city. Also in Mosul, the Iraqi Red Crescent has opened a camp for families that fled the recent sectarian bloodshed in Tal Afar, an official of the organization said.

In the Tal Afar attacks, a suicide truck bombing killed 152 people and wounded 347 in a Shiite neighborhood, triggering a rampage of sectarian vengeance by Shiite gunmen, including police officers, who killed at least 47 people, most of them Sunni Arabs, the authorities said.

About 1,300 people, most of them women and children, have sought shelter in the camp, east of Mosul, since it opened two days ago, said the official, Dr. Wadhah Ahmed. Most are Sunni Arab and Turkmen refugees who fear a resurgence in attacks by Shiite militias, he said.

The American military command said Thursday that Iraqi security forces had detained two men suspected of involvement in the Tal Afar truck bombing. They were detained Tuesday in a house northwest of the city, the military said.

On a road east of Kut, in southern Iraq, police found the bodies of two women, both teachers from Diyala, who were kidnapped during a recent bank robbery in Baquba, the police said. The thieves took about $11,500, the police said.

Guard Brigades May Return to Iraq

WASHINGTON, April 5 (AP) -- Several National Guard brigades are expected to be notified soon that they could be sent to Iraq around the first of 2008, a senior Defense Department official said Thursday. If their assignment to Iraq is ultimately approved by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, it would be the first time full Guard combat brigades were sent back to Iraq for a second tour.